Israel kills new chief of Hamas armed wing in Gaza strike
Israel said on Wednesday it had killed the new head of Hamas' armed wing in Gaza, Mohammed Odeh, after killing his predecessor earlier this month despite an ongoing ceasefire.
Since Hamas' October 2023 attack, Israel has systematically targeted the group's leaders, both in Gaza and across the region.
Odeh is the fourth head of the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades Israel claims to have killed since the start of the Gaza war.
In a joint statement, the Israeli military and the Shin Bet domestic security agency confirmed Odeh's death on Tuesday, saying he had been appointed head of the brigades after the May 15 killing of Ezzedine al-Haddad.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the "commander of the armed wing of the Hamas terrorist organisation in Gaza was eliminated yesterday and sent to meet his associates in the depths of hell".
Contacted by AFP, a Hamas source said that Odeh's wife and two children were also killed in the airstrike, and that a funeral procession would take place on Wednesday in Gaza City.
The group never officially announced or confirmed Odeh as head of the brigades, but he had long been the head of its intelligence service and was one of the group's most senior surviving figures in the Gaza Strip.
On Tuesday evening, a security source in Gaza told AFP that there was intense Israeli bombardment in western Gaza City.
The source said he had "no information on the target", but that "the scale and intensity of the attack fuelled speculation that the target was commander Mohammed Odeh, who succeeded the martyred commander Ezzedine al-Haddad".
- 'Marked for death' -
"We committed ourselves to eliminating everyone who led the October 7 massacre, and that is what we will do: they are all marked for death, wherever they may be," Katz said in his post on X.
He also repeated Israel's goal of ending Hamas's rule over the Palestinian territory and alluded to a plan for the forced displacement of its residents.
"The plan for voluntary migration from Gaza will also be implemented -- everything will be done at the right time and in the right way," he said.
The displacement of Gazans is a project backed by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. U.S. President Donald Trump previously expressed support for the idea before ditching it.
In February, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, denounced plans "aimed at making a permanent demographic change in Gaza".
- Six killed in strikes -
Since a ceasefire took hold in Gaza in October 2025, 910 people were killed by Israel, according to the territory's health ministry.
Mahmud Bassal, spokesman for Gaza's civil defense agency, told AFP that six people were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza City's upscale Rimal neighbourhood on Tuesday night.
Meanwhile, a security source in the Palestinian territory reported shelling in the south.
Israel still retains control over 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, including all entry and exit points, while the population is concentrated on the coast.
In the aftermath of Hamas' October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to target and eliminate the leaders behind it.
The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's retaliatory response in Gaza has killed at least 72,803 people, according to the territory's health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority.
Israel has previously killed Hamas's former political chief Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar, who was widely regarded as the mastermind of the October 7 attack.
It also killed Mohammed Deif, the longtime commander of Hamas's armed wing, known as the Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades, as well as Mohammed Sinwar, who succeeded his brother Yahya Sinwar as Gaza chief.
Israeli strikes have also targeted Hamas operatives in Lebanon.
Source: Agence France Presse
| Copyright © 2012 Naharnet.com. All Rights Reserved. | https://naharnet.com/stories/en/320354 |